Forgiveness

The sadness in the car was so thick that neither teenage girl spoke. They felt so much for each other that the sadness that belonged to one was felt by the other. They approached the old bridge where they pulled the car to the side. The heat from the road rose up into the cool night air as they exited the vehicle. Simone grabbed a rock and they both stood there looking over the bridge. She closed her eyes and held the rock tightly, cried a little harder and then threw the rock into the water. They both knew, that part was over now, new beginnings were afoot.

There is a tree by where I live that is full of shoes. I don't know the story, or even if there is one. I like to imagine that it's a fresh start tree. When your problems are weighing you down you can throw them into the tree and walk away to begin again.

I grew up and live in the same small town that my grandma grew up and lived in. Needless to say, i know everyone's "story" and they know mine. I will run into childhood chums often and I would find myself either saying out loud to someone or in my head the wrongs that they had caused me in the past. "Oh ya that's Billy, he counted my zits in Jr. High", or "that's Beverly, she didn't give me a gift at my wedding". These are rather small grievances, but grievances just the same. Every time we put our energy toward something like this it's like a small concrete cord between us and them. It's holding us back. Now imagine a larger grievance. "We don't talk to Uncle Bill because he stole money from my dad 30 years ago." Even though uncle Bill didn't do it to us, we are still sending out the energy to dislike him or hold on to what he has done and putting out a concrete cord to weigh us down.

Just hang out with a bunch of women drinking wine and you will find out how heavy all of their concrete cords are. They will tell you about how their parents didn't protect them, how they were hurt by their ex husband, every single perceived wrong that was ever done to them. Why do we hold onto these things? We don't want to be defined by them but we define ourselves by them. It's like we want to excuse our flaws or explain our situation by all of the shit that other people supposedly did to us. Or maybe it makes us look better than them. Or maybe we want people to feel sorry for us. Whatever it is, it's holding us back. If you consider all of the concrete cords of energy you are attached to it's no wonder you can't move forward. You are weighted down by tons and tons of heavy attachments.

Forgiveness, we think it is someone apologizing and us saying," alright I forgive you" and all is well. Nope, it's actually seeing the circumstance as just that ....a circumstance. Whatever it is you are holding on to, however awful, it's over. Every time we relive it, it happens again. Even worse, when we share it, the energy can be transferred to someone else. Once we truly let it go we are free, we are not a victim of that circumstance any more. I found that visiting these events one by one, as they come up and truly taking the time to see it, take my power back from it, and then fill it with love and let it go, is the most freeing process on earth. There is no more powerful feeling that I have encountered than to devictimize myself by not reliving injustices anymore. I have also found that it is extremely helpful to pour the negative emotions, energy, and memories associated with the event into a physical object and either burn it or discard it. What we want to do is send the energy back into the universe to be purified. Pour it into that rock and throw it off the bridge, throw that old life up into the tree, write it down on a paper and burn it by the full moon. Release yourself, you are not here to suffer and punish yourself relentlessly.